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Inleiding

We took apart the new 15" Retina MacBook Pro with the hopes that Apple made it more repair-friendly than the debut Mid 2012 model. Unfortunately, things didn't really work out in our favor; in fact, they took a turn for the (slightly) worse.

Even the headphone jack is now soldered to the logic board, which is definitely a component that can wear out over time. Users don't have to be malicious or aggressive when using the port — cyclical stress can cause it to fail either way.

For those of us who care about repair, do note that this is now your only 15" option; Apple stopped selling the non-Retina 15" MacBook Pro.

Want to learn more about repair, and inspire yourself to fix something? Check out iFixit.org.

Does anyone noticed that the bottom cover and the bottom case is actually linked with the black plastic near the battery?! After the first time you open the cover, it will be impossible to put it back to the original place. Does the critical?! Thanks a lot for informing

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One of the few differences: The 15" MBP now has a sleekified heat sink with just a single thermal pad, thanks to the more closely integrated GPU—which we attribute to the "Haswellification" process, as we call it.

Another effect of Haswelling your MacBook: This model claims to deliver an extra hour of battery life with the same capacity cells. The more efficient processor likely contributes much to that extra hour of looking at pictures of cats on the internet.

The chip marked by Orange is the Crystalwell eDRAM, 128MB in total. This can be used by both the CPU cores and The Iris Pro GPU that is still integrated in to the main core chip (the one marked by red).

i have a 15" MBP (recent one with GT 750m discreet graphic), and i MIGHT wanna open it up and change the thermal compound with a better one (arctic Mx-4), bcos the laptop get heats up quite abit. this teardown is gonna be my guide, but b4 opening it, whats ur thought of the thermal compound applied to it? is it too much like the previous MBP? need to know :) and IF i open it up, i might take a picture of the GT 750m, bcos everyone wan to look at it :D

I wondered what's the model # of the intel i7 quad core cpu was used for this laptop? It's an i7-4702mq or other model? Why you mentioned the model # of cup, i5-4258u, in the Macbook pro 13" Teardown report, but not mentioned in this report?

It is a packet buffer. Unsure why it is so large, is the controller capable of 10GigE? Just wondering if we may see some 10GigE Thunderbolt Ethernet adapters? I also think this is controller for USB3 as well.

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The moment of truth is now upon us—is the battery any easier to take out than the previous, horribly glued-in disaster?

We're holding our breath as we gently test the waters with a plastic card...

...And half an hour and several skinned knuckles later, we exhale that breath in a great sigh of disappointment. The battery has the same excessive adhesive, and is just as nearly-impossible to safely remove as before.

Why evolution of design? I as a design engineer would do the same thing. I would never make my products easy to be taken appart. So it might not be easy for none profesionals but the authorized repair 'handlers' will know how to remove the battery. It is surely not 'user' friendly for repairs yes that is true.

That's probably the most important thing about that battery. An uncased battery such as what Apple uses can be very dangerous if damaged. The average consumer doesn't know exactly how delicate those are, so Apple tries to limit access with pentalobes. Also the adhesive is there to help the battery from moving around in the casing, further reducing the possibility of damage. Sure it's hard to repair, but it's much safer.

@Tibidor: the philosophy of making products easy to take apart (note spelling) worked for manufacturers like Citroen and Land Rover in the engineering domain. In the case of Land Rover, the primary reason that they won military contracts was that an untrained soldier could pull the damaged bits off, add replacements and get going without resort to authorised repairers. And these so-say authorised repairers are not immune from error - most of the time I've found that a generic skilled mechanic was a far better bet for servicing than main dealerships, who were over-priced and arrogant with it.

An example: I lost a control dial; an authorised repairer told me I needed a new centre console at £200 plus £200 labour, the skilled and theoretically unqualified mechanic fixed the problem for £30 all-in.

I want one but the only thing that is holding me back is the evolution of design. I have a early 2011 13 inch Macbook pro that I have added a 1.5 TB drive and 16gb ram. Nice to be able to do that inexpensively and later. The $3K price tag for a machine with 1TB drive and 16gb soldered ram is also a key point. I need the machine for work but having to get the everything now and not being able to replace hardly anything myself is holding me back. Battery, Ram, SSD minimally should be user replaceable, processor would be nice but not as necessary. SSD should be the best you can afford and in a common format to keep down costs.

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As in the MacBook Air, the RAM is soldered to the logic board. Max out at 16GB now, or forever hold your peace—you can't upgrade.

The proprietary SSD has changed to a PCIe format, but still isn't a standard 2.5" drive. However, it is a separate daughtercard, and we’re hopeful we can offer an upgrade in the near future.

The lithium-polymer battery is glued rather than screwed into the case, which increases the chances that it'll break during disassembly. The battery also covers the trackpad cable, which tremendously increases the chance that the user will shear the cable in the battery removal process.

The display assembly is completely fused, and there’s no glass protecting it. If anything ever fails inside the display, you will need to replace the entire, extremely expensive assembly.

Does the circuitry change if i have the one with a higher-end graphics card? Mine has 16GB RAM, nVidia GeForce GT750M and a 2.6GHZ processor. Also, where is the battery located on this device? I have the exact same macbook, but with better specs

I have just taken my Macbook Pro 15" w retina late 2013 in for a repair and have been told I need to replace the logic board? Does anyone know if this is something I can do myself otherwise apple are charging $330. I'm frustrated that a laptop thats barely 14 months old has this kind of hardware issue. Of course I didn't buy the extended warranty.

@Tracey: I had my 512GB SSD fail about 13 months after I bought my rMBP and was quoted 824 euro by the Dutch Apple store. Like you I did not have Applecare (and sorely regretted not getting it). So I called Apple USA, sweet-talked my way up the chain, got a new quote for $300 and eventually had it replaced for free!

So definitely try calling Apple Customer Service, they might surprise you. Be polite, friendly and have patience. The first people you talk to probably can't do much for you, but their supervisors can. Good luck!

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Hi all ! I have a one year old 15" retina MbP. Could it be possible, if the part becomes available somehow, to replace the Wifi card on my mac with an ac one like on the new model ? Or does the form factor change ?

So, why are we sad that this uses the new standard for SSD instead of a decades old format that makes zero sense for anything other than spinning disks? It's fair to complain about the non-standard cards in the old Macbook Airs, but this is just silly.

Well, as things are going increasingly wireless and solid state we have a curious mix of SS and old hardware like headphone jacks. If you were to break your headphone jack I presume you could get one of the zillions of USB sound cards with headphone jack that offer better sound anyway. I also presume you could still stream music via wi-fi with an Apple TV or AirPort Express or via AirPlay devices or bluetooth headphones. So much ado about nothing? Apple already gave up on user-replaceable batteries ages ago so this is nothing new. And the last generation had non-upgradeable RAM as well - nobody buys an iPad thinking they can upgrade the RAM later... this is how things are going. So the practical advice is: max this puppy out if you want one but don't lament the other stuff. AND BUY APPLECARE if you're going to invest the big bucks in one of these.

I did buy the 15" Macbook Pro with the 1TB SSD and 16GB Memory with the 2.6GHz QC i7. Would be great to see where they fit in the Graphics card in that compact space. I daren't open up my new rMBP when it does arrive on wednesday. I was really hoping that the iFixit guys would shed some light on how the added graphics card looks. Looks like I may have to buy the proprietary screw driver and open it up myself. I've had a 2011 MBP with the 2.4GHz Quad Core i7 and was manually able to upgrade the Memory to 16GB DDDR3 and added a 512GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD and a 1TB 7200RPM ssd in the CD Bay. I still couldnt get the performance I needed to run multiple VM's smoothly. I am hoping to get that kind of performance out of this new machine with 2 1920x1200 monitors in addition to the rDisplay. The 2011 MBP I have constantly runs the fan at high speed and its quite a conversation-starter. Lets hope that adding the nVidia 750m doesn't have the same problem... with an additional fan. Anybody?

if this was truly good design, it would allow you to take it apart to upgrade when funds permit. Same with the iphone, it could look just as it does and still be able to open it without tools to swap out the battery when its flat by lunch time.

the 'form follows function' times of apple are well and truly over in favor of the biggest $.

The list of tools provided in this guide points to http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/T5-Torx-Scre... which currently shows a regular 6-point T5 torx. The screws for the bottom cover of my MBP requires the pentalobe (5-point) bit to unscrew.

How do you fit a regular 6-point T5 torx to open the MBP up? Or does the guide need to be updated to point to the correct tool?

Greetings from Cleveland,Ohio. This is my first comment,and it is in reference to my barely used,late 2013 Macbook Pro.15" Retina display,256,SSD,8gigs of Ram. The only thing that was used less than the laptop,was the Trackpad,that now needs to be replaced,and after seeing this Guide,I either pay Apple 300 bucks for a whole new top,which is what the Apple store people told me I would get with the repair.Obviously,that's the only way that the Trackpad can be replaced. I'm new here to this website,and very happy that I found it by mistake. Thank you very much for the info on this piece of !@#$ computer.My only regret is that I didn't find you before I bought the Macbook,because I never would have purchased one. I will never purchase another Apple product. Cheers!

Has anyone stopped to think the glued on top case/battery is actually one of the best ideas apple had-here is why: after paying the obscene price of 3+k for the top haswell-it supports 4k to ur expensive TV and that is 10+ years future-proof, sony at the world cup promised 4k and failed spectacularly. 8k is 2020+ out. 14nm 8 virtual cores is FAST, +no quantum issues. When you're done destroying the battery by running it through 1000 charging cycles, the keyboard will have been done in after 4 years of email !&&*. And the crumbs of the to-go meals while using the %#*@ thing's OS? They disappear into the key gaps like the bermuda triangle. Not to mention the unnecessary hard clicks on the track pad when you are reading something you don't like and are murdering the links like it's their fault. Enough said, the top case will be fukd w/o even considering the occasional drop. Even your prehistoric Rolex's metal band will have had a go and scratched the palm rest. A new top case for 200 dos will be welcome .

Could anyone please tell me what the two rubber u-shaped structures that stick to the top of the heat sink and then onto the top of the fans, are? Mine is coming away from the heat sink and I'm wondering if that's why my computer is running warm... Thank you

I took my late 2014 to the apple store recently because the trackpad stopped clicking. it turned out to be a swollen battery pressing on the trackpad. They said that the battery was one unit with the keyboard and trackpad and that they would have to replace the entire unit. it would be about $500 but because it was caused by the swollen battery, they didn’t change anything. What a relief!

I recently took my late 2014 to the Apple store because the trackpad had stopped clicking. they said that the battery was swollen and pressing on the trackpad causing it to not click. They have to replace the whole battery+keyboard+trackpad+casetop unit. It would be $500 but since it was caused by a swollen battery (and they are nervous about that) they decided to do the replacement and didn’t charge anything. What a relief!